A (1:50)

Yeah, it's not maybe.

B (1:52)

Apparently not, because you guys have like a steak supplier now. Okay. Jesus. Are you ready for our topic today?

A (1:58)

Yeah. What you got?

B (1:59)

This came into my inbox this morning. And I don't normally check my inbox often for this type of stuff. I check it every day for, like, client stuff, but I have all my promotions that are just like. I'll check that in a second. This one, though. Anytime anything comes up from Thomas, from Science says, are you on sciences? I don't think. Oh, this is where I get all my scientific studies from. When we do like our science quizzes and things, I get them from sciences.com so shout out to them. This is not sponsored. Thomas is just amazing at what he does. Do you want to quiz it? Do you want me to tell you the, the, the actual stat? I have a game that we're going to do with it. So the back end is going to be really interesting.

A (2:33)

We can do a quick quiz and.

B (2:35)

Get into the game. Quick quiz. All right, all right, all right. Okay. How am I going to frame this so you can drive up to 40% more traffic and better engagement when you use this specific length of video. Length of video. So 40 more traffic and better engagement with a specific length of video.

A (2:57)

Six seconds.

B (2:59)

Oh my God, you're close.

A (3:00)

Seven.

B (3:01)

Really? You know.

A (3:03)

All right, we'll do it.

B (3:05)

10. Less than 10 seconds. So like. Yeah, but like anywhere around that 10 second mark, 15 to 30 seconds saw less engagement and less traffic. So the 10 second ads apparently drive up to 40% more traffic and better engagement. 10 seconds though. I'm like, what? That is totally against everything that we've ever heard in D2C. It's almost always a 15 to 30 second AD.

A (3:28)

Yeah.

B (3:28)

Minimum 15 to 30 seconds they're saying. According to this research. Yeah. This one in particular research was June 2025 by the Indiana University, Texas Christian University.

A (3:38)

Oh, it's a recent.

B (3:40)

Yeah, recent one. This is couple months ago. Yeah, yeah.

A (3:43)

Do you think it. Now this, I think important to note here, this is talking about traffic, not conversions.

B (3:48)

Yeah, not talking about conversions. So this is straight engagement.

A (3:51)

Do you think it's because, like sometimes the less information we give, the more curiosity it creates.

B (3:56)

I think so, yeah. So in this particular study they tested two different ads. One that was 10 seconds, one that was 25 seconds long. The 10 second ad had a 35% click through rate and the, the 25 second ad had a 25%.

A (4:10)

35% click through rate.

B (4:11)

35%. I was like, what was in this ad? Like, what was the ad? Now I need to know. I, I don't, I don't know. They don't show me what the, the actual video is. They just said that that's.

A (4:21)

I wonder if they're running traffic campaigns or something.

B (4:23)

But maybe so now I need to dig deeper into this.

A (4:26)

But either way it does matter. It's super interesting that the shorter one was that much better.

B (4:30)

Yes. Shorter one. So as a part of the analysis 50,000 TV ad airings in the US and an A B test of 25,000 Facebook ad impressions. The less than 10 less than 10 second ads generated 3x engagement of the longer ads and TV drove up to 40% more traffic to the brand's website. That's crazy. In a five minute window post ad.

A (4:51)

This is super interesting and I think like supports how I think about static advertising.

B (4:57)

Oh really? Yeah.

A (4:59)

Because we don't run a lot of videos at og we might have my next brand. Who knows? I do have a new job, everyone, so watch out for that. I, I don't think it's an ad's job to sell your product.

B (5:14)

Whoa.

A (5:15)

I think it's, I think it's only an ad's job to sell the click. Is it like it's only an ads job to get you to the site. Your site should do more of the selling for you. And I think if that's what you think about advertising, you'll structure your ads and your landing pages more. If they each have a distinct job of like hey, this, I just have to get a qualified person to the site and then the page has to sell them on the product because the, the back half of all the, the video ads I see all goes into logic, all goes into the features, all goes into like the reasons to buy. And people aren't making a purchasing decision on Facebook. They can't yet. There's no checkout button. So yeah, I'm a fan of let's get in and get them to your site and get out. And I think it only takes, you know, seven to 10 seconds to do that.

B (6:10)

That's crazy. Well, and I love the distinction here that you are optimizing for basically people moving. All you want to do is get people to move off platform onto another platform. You're not really trying to get conversions which I, ugh, I have such a hard time with conversions because there are ways that you can put ads in place that will get a conversion, a higher chance that the conversion will come in and however, which of course we all know, discounts, bundles, pricing, like all kinds of stuff. However, according to this, sometimes you can get people to the entity that actually sells a lot better, a lot quicker. When you don't optimize for conversions straight out the gate, which I'm like 100%. Let's pause for just a minute. I've got myself googling better ways to scale ads outside of meta more and more recently. Because let's be real, if your business only lives on meta or Google, you're basically just renting customers instead of owning them. When all of your ad dollars flow through the same two platforms, you're kind of just stuck, right? It's a mental trap of like a little bit of learned helplessness. Costs are going to rise, controls are going to vanish and you're going to start to believe that there's no other way. Kind of feels like you're just pressing buttons in a machine that doesn't care if you win or lose. This is where Other side comes in. They have completely rebuilt programmatic advertising from the ground up and this is the reason why we've partnered with them. Instead of being kind of chained to one platform, you get access to connected tv, display, native audio, mobile apps, and unlike kind of deals clunky old programmatic agencies, Other side uses their own optimization algorithm. You can kind of think of this as kind of like a bias free decision engine that adapts in real time across every single channel. Otherside builds those pathways by hitting your customer on Netflix, Candy Crush, then Spotify. So, so the message kind of just feels familiar and not forced. You get unified tracking on this. So no more attribution black holes. Other side is going to give you transparent performance reports so you can finally get like cognitive clarity right on what's actually driving sales. They are already running profitable programmatic campaigns for brands across D2C, Health, Wellness, Legion, all over the place. The only question isn't if you'll work with them, it's when. And you're going to regret waiting. So go do it today. Here's kind of the TLDR on this. They back it all with a money back guarantee, which I really appreciate. If they don't deliver on the results you're hoping for, then then they're going to refund your retainer, which in today's day and age I really, really appreciate. So if you are ready to kind of just stop renting your growth and actually start owning your scaling strategy, head over to Join the Other side. Com. That's Join the Other side. Com. They are programmatic and they're rebuilt to perform. So go check them out today. And now back to the show. There's a thread of warm and cold traffic psychology in here which we, you and I have studied this heavily, specifically when we ran a CIM for the for og. But there's a difference between how people actually operate and how they function mentally when they're in cold traffic kind of mentality versus warm traffic mentality.

A (8:56)

When we launch our our sale ads for Christmas, those ads only work because of the advertising we've done the previous 12 months.

B (9:06)

Yep.

A (9:07)

Like, because we've already gotten the awareness and interest from people. Because the only thing we're saying come sale time is, hey, buy it right now because it's X percentage off.

B (9:16)

Yeah.

A (9:16)

But like, we had to sell them on the idea of buying the product before that. And I think that's what most people miss in prospecting is they try to like close the deal before someone knows them or is aware of them or likes them. It's like, I mean, trying to ask someone to hook up before you go to dinner. It's like, no, no. You need that first step before you can get to the conversion. Terrible example. But you know what I mean?

B (9:40)

We talked about this so many times and this is interesting because this is basically what we call a micro ad.

A (9:45)

Yeah.

B (9:46)

It's like E freaking bitty. It's shorter than the shortest ads I've seen anybody run. Usually people are like, minimum of 15 seconds. Because you need time to, like, persuade people and like, get all your social proof out there. According to this scientific study that came out in 2025, you technically need less than 10 seconds.

A (10:03)

Yeah. And I'd like to remind everyone that I guessed correctly.

B (10:06)

You did. You kind of did, actually. Yeah. 100%. If you can't get somebody to click within 10 freaking seconds, I don't know. Are you doing your job?

A (10:17)

None of us run businesses more complicated that can't be explained in a 10 second ad. Not one of us do.

B (10:24)

Even insurance companies can do it within 10 seconds. Like, if they could do it in 10 seconds, you could do it a second. Okay. You ready for the game?

A (10:30)

Yeah, let's do it.

B (10:31)

We're gonna make some ads today. Just. Just verbal ads. I want you to read it as if you're an influencer.

A (10:37)

Like, I am an influencer. As of 5pm today, full time podcast.

B (10:41)

5Pm today, full time podcast. I want you to read an ad. Just do an ad read for companies that I'm going to give you. You have to keep it within 10, 10 seconds. I'm going to time it.

A (10:51)

Go.

B (10:51)

And I'm going to tell you whether you kept it in 10 seconds. I'll give you time to rate it so you don't have to like do a crazy f. Do you want to just do it off top of your head? You want to? Yep. You want to. Oh, God. Okay.

A (11:01)

Yeah, we're just going to freestyle.

B (11:02)

All right. The brand that you have to do this for. Should I give you a hard word or easy one to Begin with.

A (11:08)

Let's start off easy, please.

B (11:10)

Okay. Let's do an ad read for OG because you have that skill set built up. So 10 second ad read for OG ready? Three.

A (11:17)

All right.

B (11:17)

Two, one, go.

A (11:19)

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Do I need. Let me preface with context of who this ad's for and when it'll be delivered. This ad's gonna be for a female gift buyer in November.

B (11:30)

Okay. All right, all right, I'm ready. Ready, ready. Three, two, one, go.

A (11:34)

Show your man he's worth every second with a gift as unique and storied as he is because he's earned a gift as rugged, independent. Say, oh, that got. That got away from me.

B (11:44)

10 seconds. That's pretty good, though. Okay.

A (11:46)

All right.

B (11:47)

That's hard in there.

A (11:48)

Okay. Another brand.

B (11:49)

Okay. So you have to think this is elevator pitch. 10 seconds is elevator pitch. What do you do? Who do you do it for, and why did you do it in the first place?

A (11:58)

All right, I think I got it now. New brand, let's go.

B (12:01)

All right, new brand, let's do. Could you do Liquid Death?

A (12:04)

Yep.

B (12:05)

Okay, ready? Three, two, one, go. We're four seconds in, and there's nothing.

A (12:14)

No, I know, I know.

B (12:15)

Okay. All right, reset. This is the reason why I'm like, let's get. Let's get some time.

A (12:18)

I think. I think I'm good.

B (12:20)

Okay. All right. Three, two, one, go.

A (12:24)

Pure water. Dirty lifestyle.

B (12:27)

Whoa. Five seconds. That was all that was bars on that one.

A (12:32)

Dirty's not the right adjective, but something to do with like.

B (12:36)

Yeah, yeah.

A (12:37)

Adventurous lifestyle.

B (12:38)

Yeah, there's more, like metal. I wish that we could. We could curse a lot more because I would just put like, you lifestyle.

A (12:47)

Yeah.

B (12:48)

Stick in there. Pretty dang good. Okay, there you go. So that was five seconds. I need a 10 second. So you need to double whatever you just did and get it in that.

A (12:56)

Oh, it has to be 10. I thought it was just under 10.

B (12:59)

It said basically, 10 is what it said about 10. It's harder than it looks. This is the reason why I'm like, I love that we're doing this practice session, because for anybody who's listening to this podcast, taking what you usually elaborate on and make so super crazy and complex and this huge, long landing page with all this crap. Taking that down to 10 seconds forces you to realize I oversell. And the brain doesn't need that much context to be able to move forward. In fact, sometimes it needs one phrase to be able to purchase. That's it. So this is why I'm like, I love this. Don't worry, I'll let you do this to me in a second. So I'm going to suck at this. Okay. New brand. All right. Do you want me to give you a hard one or an easy one?

A (13:42)

These are all going to be hard.

B (13:45)

Okay. Let's do dad game. Can you do dad game?

A (13:47)

Okay. Yep.

B (13:48)

Okay. All right. Ready? Are you ready or should I win? Okay. 3, 2, 1, go.

A (13:53)

We make the best hats for the best dads to make the best memories count.

B (13:59)

Oh, perfect. Six seconds. That was good. Let's in that like six to 10. But that was a lovely ad read. That was lovely. This is why I work with, like, copywriting guru, because you can, you could do these types of games off of your head and it doesn't sound weird. Okay, that was good.

A (14:17)

I'm so fascinated by the 10 second AD.

B (14:21)

10 seconds because it's hard. 5 seconds is easy. Okay. I have, I basically have to feel four words. That's easy.

A (14:27)

Yeah.

B (14:27)

Ten is a little harder because it's like I have basically 7 to 10 words is about as long as it can be and that's it. I can't go any farther than that.

A (14:36)

Do you know, it's like, so, so interesting to me on this. It's obvious once you start to think about it. Has anything memorable ever happened after 10 seconds in an ad?

B (14:47)

I don't think so. Never?

A (14:49)

Like, yeah, outside of, like, super bowl commercials that are designed to, like, have a story in them. Like, no one is watching your Facebook ads for longer than 10. Really? Like seven?

B (15:03)

No. And the people that are like, they're not. They're just like, watching because they're bored.

A (15:09)

And the problem is people don't get to the point quick enough. Because, like, as I'm doing this, I'm thinking about, like, ads that I've seen and ads that I've scripted. I don't get to the point quick enough.

B (15:21)

Yeah, well, and it's, it's interesting because I think this is probably just like a learned trait right? So often, but way back in the day when they were doing stuff in the 1920s, you had this much newspaper. That's it. You got to get to the point immediate, right? Like, it's got to be super fast. Even if you had several panels, there's a limited amount of space in ads. I almost think it's not good for our mentality as marketers. There's unlimited. Yeah, it's unlimited opportunity. Unlimited amounts of, like, length of video. Unlimited things you could possibly say, which for a lot of the brands that I work with is very debilitating because it's like, well, now what do I pick? What do I say? Because there's too much. There's just too much. So limited this week. Like, I want to see some tests.

A (16:03)

I think people on video ads, I think they, like, the hook is always like, problem focused and I think they stick on the problem or the pain point for way too long.

B (16:13)

Oh, really? I see the opposite.

A (16:16)

Oh, really?

B (16:17)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Specifically not trying to, like, shame you guys. True Classic does this a lot. True Classic stays on the problem for literally just the hook and then the whole rest of the ad read is solution.

A (16:29)

Yeah. I'd be super interested to start on the benefit or the outcome.

B (16:36)

Oh, and media stress. Yeah, like, drop it into the middle of the story. Yeah, yeah.

A (16:42)

And then, like, get the problem in. Like, if I was going to do this for like my Red Bull, I think I see a million ads that are all, like, tired, need a boost, and scroll past all of them. But if one ad started on the, like, you know, clean energy without the jitters, because it sucks having that 2pm crash. Like, if you went benefit first, I.

B (17:09)

Would almost go further than that. I would almost start your ad with like, and she lived happily ever after.

A (17:14)

Yo. That's super interesting.

B (17:16)

Just started at the very, very end.

A (17:18)

Oh, that's what I give a shit about.

B (17:19)

Like, yeah, yeah.

A (17:22)

Hey, Chris, if you listen to this podcast, the, the ad should be like, and her husband loved her for the rest of time because there you go.

B (17:33)

Oh my God, that hurts. So I would 100 buy today.

A (17:36)

You know what I mean? Now start on that and then go back, like, because she bought him this watch.

B (17:42)

That's what I'm saying. I don't think we start far enough. I don't even know that the 2pm crash matters to me. What matters to me is that I got a raise. I got the promotion.

A (17:50)

Yeah.

B (17:51)

Like, I, I, I, like, my kids are now five and they remembered me as a good mom and they said, like, your childhood was lovely.

A (17:58)

So this episode, are we telling people to make sub 10 second ads that don't focus on the pain point at all are purely benefit driven?

B (18:06)

I, Yes, I think it'd be a good test. 10 second AD reads, that's like, and she lived happily ever after. Boop. Here comes up the logo, the product, the brand, send them to the site. That's it.

A (18:17)

He never felt more confident.

B (18:19)

Yeah. Oh, so good. Yes. Because as you can tell, like, Nate's a pro copywriter that can come up with this shit on the top of his head and even he's sitting here like, think, think, think. 10 seconds. 10 seconds.

A (18:32)

Well, it forces you to think about what really matters.

B (18:34)

Yes.

A (18:35)

And like calling out a pain point, like, are you tired in the morning? So shut the up. Everyone's tired in the morning. We don't need, we don't need to talk about it. Let's just show the ideal outcome. Let's just show the outcome.

B (18:48)

Yeah. You know, especially, oh, in 10 seconds you can say so much. It forces you to get very, very clear on what it is that you guys are doing. Oh, is that it? Should we end it there?

A (19:01)

Yeah, that's a great episode. Run 10 second ads. I would. All right. I did two things. If I still had a job in marketing, I would, I would take your best performing video ads, I would shorten them to get under 10, I would start with that and then I would create new ones that are purely benefit driven like we're talking about. Yeah. I don't think. And then this way I, I think people overstate the pain point. People know the pain points, they're feeling them. I don't think we need to keep marketing into them. I think that's wasting valuable time and attention span that you're going to lose because you're not the only person marketing into that pain point.

B (19:41)

Yes.

A (19:42)

I think you should start with the ideal outcome and hammer that for 10 seconds of an ad and see what happens.

B (19:48)

Yes. Well, and this is, this is exactly the same psychology that the man you might could smell like put into place.

A (19:54)

Yep.

B (19:54)

I want to take all those teeny tiny little clips. Whatever he was doing on the horse or in the shower, like by the beach or whatever he was doing. Just run those as like tiny clips. This I'm starting to see more and more. And we can go into the weeds on this if you want. There is a creative strategy trend that's happening where people are basically doing, what would you call them? Like a series ad series where one is like, we're treasure hunters. The next one is we're like in dinosaur era. The next one's Victorian era. And they just do these really like small little bits basically. Small little like skits.

A (20:22)

Yeah.

B (20:23)

With their products. And it's interesting because people like eat that shit up.

A (20:26)

Yeah.

B (20:27)

I love it. Bring campaigns back 100%. So I'm like, I want to see people go out and do these 10 second ad reads in campaign style. Do these like itty bitty little stories because people can't get enough of them. They're just interesting to watch. And we talk about this a lot. Like, psychologically be more interesting.

A (20:43)

That kind of thing is where I've seen, like super bowl advertisers actually step it up in the last five years or so. Like, I think most super bowl ads, the ads that run during the super bowl are trash.

B (20:55)

Yeah.

A (20:56)

And like, just don't. Don't do what I think they should do. Now you guys can. I've never on a Super bowl ad, I've never been paid to write one. So, like, am I. But what I think they do really well lately is, like, they're doing like lead ins to it and they're running campaigns for six months before that. Then, like, climax. I think that's super smart. And I think we should be thinking about it in D2C. I think we talked about it on the last episode. Like, OG is running like an October ad campaign for female gift buyers who we know will not buy until Black Friday. But we're doing it 60 days ahead of time because we need to start priming them.

B (21:36)

This is so smart. All right, everybody, here's your homework this week. Go out and run us a 10 second ad.

A (21:40)

Yeah.

B (21:41)

And then ping us on Twitter and be like, I ran it. Here was the results from the chat. I need you to have like your brand set up and ready here so we can start testing some of this stuff.

A (21:50)

Sandbox can do it on the side hustle.

B (21:53)

That's true. Yeah, you could do it on the side hustle.

A (21:55)

I might start talking about that. We've officially crossed 10 grand in revenue, by the way.

B (22:01)

Dang, dude.

A (22:02)

Okay. It's like not nothing anymore, you know.

B (22:05)

But for like a side hustle side, this is like a, like a, you know, in the five hours a week that I just need something to do. I'm growing a brand. Dang. Okay. Yeah. See, good marketers run good. Okay, that's it. That's a good one.

A (22:20)

What an episode. Shout out, other side and tether.

B (22:24)

Thank you. Hey, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm Sarah Levenger. Anywhere you consume content, he is aatelegos. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like, subscribe. Share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. We'll see you next time.